White Masks Read Online Free PDF Page B

kitchen.
    I don’t know exactly what happened that day, but things pretty much
went back to how they were, nothing really changed. Well, except for the cat. I could see that he’d changed ... how shall I put it, I mean he began changing color. Even though he was a black cat, his blackness began veering to white, it was closer to gray, a dirty sort of gray. The fur on his neck was all puffed up. And he’d stopped mewing - he just sat in a corner of the room and didn’t move. But it was the smell . . . That smell became unbearable, even though I did everything under the sun to get rid of it. What was I to do? And him - Khalil, I mean, he seemed oblivious . . . he didn’t seem bothered by the cat, or by the fact that it had changed color, or even by the smell. So I still don’t know what exactly happened that night. I asked Khalil, and I asked the cat, did they have a fight? I didn’t think so, the room was just the same as before, there was nothing different about it, and there was no evidence of any fighting. It must be the djinn, I thought. But do djinns make those kinds of noises? I don’t know, I swear to God I no longer understood anything.
    And then he died. The cat, I mean. He died without a name - in our preoccupation with Khalil and the djinn, we never gave the cat a name, so he died nameless.
    When I went into the room that morning, I found the poor scrawny-necked thing lying on the floor, motionless. I wrapped him in a newspaper and threw him out on the street where we dump the garbage. When I got back, Khalil was sitting on the edge of the bed. I asked him to leave the room so that I could clean. He did, and after I was done I found him sitting in the living room in his usual corner, listening to the radio. Seeing me come in, he smiled and asked me what I was going to cook. I told him I was making macaroni.

    â€œThat’s great,” he said.
    Al-hamdulillah, it had worked, Sitt Khadijah’s plan had worked! I asked him to come with me and we went into the bathroom, where I got him to change his pajamas. He bathed for the first time in days and then I dressed him in fresh pajamas, sat him in the living room, and went into the kitchen to prepare lunch. Although he went back to his bed, he left the door open. When I went in and sat beside him and asked him if he was hungry, he said yes, and I brought him a plateful of macaroni. He polished it off, eating with his old gusto.
    â€œI want to sleep, leave me now,” he said.
    So I did, but the door remained open all that day and all night. I didn’t dare sleep by his side, I was afraid, no, not of him, but ... oh! I don’t know, I was just afraid . . . But I thanked God that the djinn had departed and Khalil was himself again.
    In the morning, my husband got up, dressed, and said he was going to work. I can’t describe to you how happy I was. But then he switched on the radio and sat in the living room.
    â€œWhat about work?” I asked.
    â€œI’m just going to listen to the news before I go,” he replied.
    I rushed over to Sitt Khadijah. I told her the whole story and kissed both her hands. Khalil’s cured, I told her, and asked if there was anything else I should do. She advised me to burn incense in the room. She gave me some - only after I’d paid a pretty penny for it, mind you - and I went back home.
    When I got there, I found him in the room, sitting on the edge of the bed, staring into space . . . I spoke to him, but he didn’t even turn around . . .
so I started on the incantations and the incense-burning. His face was furrowed with wrinkles, and he seemed totally absent. Oh Lord, Lord, what is going on, what is happening to us, I said to myself... his face . . . that’s not a face ... so thin and wrinkled, and with those big dark rings under his eyes. He gestured for me to leave the room, so I did, and I heard the key turn in the lock.
    He went back to his old ways, and